Comparative Study of Corrosion Characteristics of MCS and KS7 SS in Selected Acid Media

Abstract

The challenges of corrosion in manufacturing industries and domestic sectors are enormous and have caused product loss, product contaminations, plants shutdown, loss of customer confidence and non durability of machineries. The objective of this study is to investigate and compare the corrosion resistance of medium Carbon steel (MCS) and KS7 stainless steel in selected acid media. The MCS and KS7 SS were exposed to 0.5M of H2SO4, HCl and HNO3 environment for 36 days. The weight loss was taken every 3 days in order to evaluate CPR. The results obtained showed that KS7 SS generally offers a better corrosion resistance than the MCS in the selected acids media. The conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that while MCS is found to be unsuitable alloy in sulphuric, nitric and hydrochloric acid environments, KS7 SS is a reliable choice material for fabrication of engineering machines and tools meant for utility in these media.